The Treasury of Ancient Egypt: Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and ArchaeologyWeigall, Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome)
History
The Treasury of Ancient Egypt: Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology
Weigall, Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome)
Archaeology; Egypt -- Antiquities
Like many other nobles of the period, he had constructed for himself a
tomb at Sakkara, in the shadow of the pyramids of the old kings of
Egypt; and fragments of this tomb, which of course was abandoned when he
became Pharaoh, are now to be seen in various museums. In one of the
scenes there sculptured Horemheb is shown in the presence of a king who
is almost certainly Akhnaton; and yet in a speech to him inscribed
above the reliefs, Horemheb makes reference to the god Amon whose very
name was anathema to the King. The royal figure is drawn according to
the canons of art prescribed by Akhnaton, and upon which, as a protest
against the conventional art of the old order, he laid the greatest
stress in his revolution; and thus, at all events, Horemheb was in
sympathy with this aspect of the movement. But the inscriptions which
refer to Amon, and yet are impregnated with the Aton style of
expression, show that Horemheb was not to be held down to any one mode
of thought. Akhnaton was, perhaps, already dead when these inscriptions
were added, and thus Horemheb may have had no further reason to hide his
views; or it may be that they constituted a protest against that
narrowness which marred the last years of a pious king.
Those who read the history of the period in the last chapter will
remember how Akhnaton came to persecute the worshippers of Amon, and how
he erased that god's name wherever it was written throughout the length
and breadth of Egypt. Evidently with this action Horemheb did not agree;
nor was this his only cause for complaint. As an officer, and now a
highly placed general of the army, he must have seen with feelings of
the utmost bitterness the neglected condition of the Syrian provinces.
Revolt after revolt occurred in these states; but Akhnaton, dreaming and
praying in the sunshine of El Amarna, would send no expedition to
punish the rebels. Good-fellowship with all men was the King's
watchword, and a policy more or less democratic did not permit him to
make war on his fellow-creatures. Horemheb could smell battle in the
distance, but could not taste of it. The battalions which he had trained
were kept useless in Egypt; and even when, during the last years of
Akhnaton's reign, or under his successor Smenkhkara, he was made
commander-in-chief of all the forces, there was no means of using his
power to check the loss of the cities of Asia. Horemheb must have
watched these cities fall one by one into the hands of those who
preached the doctrine of the sword, and there can be little wonder that
he turned in disgust from the doings at El Amarna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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